Cheese rind: when it is cheese and when it is packaging

Three different objects hide under the same word, and confusing them is the source of nearly every misunderstanding.

The first is the rind that forms by itself: the surface of the paste which, through brine and months in the store, loses water, compacts and darkens. Nothing was added; it is the same curd, dried. Parmigiano Reggiano works this way.

The second is the bloomy or washed rind, which is alive: a layer of moulds or bacteria that the cheesemaker cultivates on the surface and which takes part in the ripening. Taleggio, Strachitunt and Salva Cremasco belong here, and on these cheeses the rind is part of the flavour rather than a defence.

The third is not cheese at all: a coating added to protect the wheel, usually paraffin or food-grade plastic. It exists for transport and storage, and nobody ever intended it as something to eat.

We looked at what the specifications require and at what the pages of the cheeses in our atlas declare. The picture that emerges cannot be deduced by looking at the wheel.

On some products treatment is forbidden outright. Parmigiano Reggiano permits no chemical treatment and no artificial coating, so the rind is the paste itself. The Fontina specification calls for a thin brown-orange rind and forbids covering it in wax. Piacentinu Ennese must not be treated at all.

On others, treatment is standard and declared: Provolone often carries paraffin, aged Asiago is treated, Pecorino Toscano may be, Canestrato Pugliese is.

Then there is the case that surprises people most: Gorgonzola, whose wrinkled greyish rind is not treated as part of the product to eat, even though it is not an added coating either.

There is one reliable method: ask, and on a packaged product read. Labelling rules require non-edible parts to be indicated, and it is worth hunting for because it is usually set small.

Two visual clues do hold, though. A perfectly smooth, uniform and slightly glossy surface, the same colour all over the wheel, is usually a coating: natural rinds are irregular and carry the marks of the mould and of turning. And a rind that peels away in one continuous sheet, rather than crumbling, is almost always an added material.

On Parmigiano Reggiano there is one further check, this one for authenticity: the pin-dot marking pressed into the side while the wheel was still fresh. An added coating would not carry it.

On hard pastes the rind is raw material, and in Emilia it has never been thrown away. The classic use is broth: a piece of Parmigiano rind in minestrone or a pulse soup releases glutamates and fat and changes the dish.

Two practical points, about yield rather than safety. The outer surface has been handled for months in the store, so scrape it with a knife first. And take the rind out before serving, because that part does not melt: it does its work and then turns rubbery.

On living rinds, washed or bloomy, the case is different: there the rind is eaten with the paste because that is where much of the aroma sits. Cutting the rind off a Taleggio means eating half the cheese.

On coated rinds there is nothing to do: cut them off and discard them, because they are packaging.

A living rind breathes, which is why several of our pages say so explicitly: Ragusano, Raschera and Valtellina Casera suffocate under plastic.

Wrapping a natural rind in film against the surface stops moisture exchange. The surface turns tacky and then grows mould where it should not, and that is not the cheesemaker's good mould: it is condensation. The laminated paper used at counters exists precisely to avoid this, and at home baking parchment inside a closed container is the reasonable compromise.

There is a consequence for keeping that you can see by eye: a piece with more rind and less cut surface dries more slowly than a fully exposed piece of the same weight. The rind is the cheese's first defence, and it is worth not cutting it away early.